Beginners Guide To Twitter for Small Business Owners in Nigeria

Are you debating whether your small business should invest time on Twitter?

Do you wonder how Twitter can help your business?

If you run a small business and aren’t using Twitter, I have to ask, why not? It seems that just about everyone else on the planet with access to the web or a smart phone is.

By being an active part of the Twitter community and sharing the right mix of content, you can reach a larger audience, generate more leads and become the go-to source when customers are ready to buy.

Forty-seven percent of people who follow a brand on Twitter are more likely to visit that company’s website. According to Premium Times, Nigeria is the third most active country in Africa on Twitter.

If you are targeting millennials, it will be unwise to overlook Twitter as a marketing platform.

Now you know twitter will work for your business, so how can you get your Tweets seen?

Since Twitter has grown and businesses keep jumping on board, making competition fiercer than ever. How do you get your brand in front of your target audience.

Follow these steps to get more out of Twitter for your business.

Beginner’s Guide to Twitter for Small Business Owners

1. Be More Personal

People tend to use social media to reach as many people as you can but that is wrong especially for Twitter.

Twitter was built as a conversation tool and not a broadcast tool.

Start up conversations with people are likely to need your product/service.

Yes, it might be more difficult but it’s scales more easily and you get targeted followers.

You also have to come up with content that will either entertain, educate or humour your audience. Post content they can relate to for maximum engagement.

To create content your followers can easily relate to, you have to first develop a buyer persona. This helps you know what sort of content they will like.

We know our target audience are small business owners, so on our Twitter page we talk about apps they can use to be more efficient in business. We also drop relevant links to our blog where we give digital marketing or business tips.

2. Stay On Top of Twitter’s Algorithm

Recently twitter switched the way users view tweets by showing them tweets they’re more likely to care about.

The new algorithm rewards brands that share content their followers engage more with.

When you focus on creating quality content and one-to-one conversations, you’ll have no problem getting Twitter engagement.

As more people engage with your Tweets, Twitter will pick up on the pattern and be more likely to prioritize your Tweets to those users.

3. Use Twitter Video

Video is a great way to tell your story, connect with your audience and grow your Twitter following.

Although Twitter can be as long as 140 seconds, it is wiser to keep it under 45vseconds because people lose interest fast. Get the information you want people to know within 30 seconds if possible.

You can use Twitter videos to share real time events, promote and educate or respond to a question one of your followers asked you like Garyvee does.

This is an excellent opportunity for your followers to get to know the people behind your brand, which is important when you’re trying to connect on a personal level.

Video is a simple way to respond to your audience, and it’s far more engaging than a simple tweet would be.

Video can be one of the most effective ways to be successful with Twitter for small businesses. If you’ve never given it a try, hopefully this will give you the push you need to take action.

5. Tweet More Frequently

To get the most out of Twitter, tweet about 5–10 tweets per day.

Always put quality ahead of quantity. Tweet things that are only relevant to your audience. Do not spam them with irrelevant information.

6. Check Your Analytics Daily

Monitor your Twitter through analytics to see if your strategy is helping or hurting your profile.

We can’t stress the importance of checking your analytics enough. When you’re making changes to your Tweet frequency or schedule, you need to know what impact it’s having. The last thing you want to do is put more time and effort into something that’s not working.

7. Work With Influencers

Partner up with notable people in your industry for creative campaigns like a social media takeover or an “ask me anything” Tweet session.

8. Stay organised

Twitter can be a lot of work. Make things simpler by streamlining your processes. Use the list functionality to organise individuals into helpful lists. Having a list for customers, influencers, prospects and even competitors will make monitoring and targeting easier and much more effective. If you don’t want the person to know you’ve added them to a list, make the list private.

9. Use Hashtags

If something big is happening, it’s happening on Twitter and the chances are, it has its own hashtag.

Hashtags are used to centralise a conversation. Searching a specific hashtag in the search bar will bring up a stream of any tweet that contains it. Hijack the hashtag, get involved in the conversation, and watch your engagement levels grow.

Hashtags can also be a more general link to a topic, person or interest — so if Twitter users are searching for tweets on a certain subject, a hashtag can alert them to your tweet. For example, when we tweet about our campaigns at Bozboz, we may use the hashtag #contentmarketing or #digitalcampaigns.

You can also get involved with, or even facilitate. These are conversations that happen on Twitter at specific times around a specific subject. There are Twitter chats for cities, industries, hobbies, sports.

To find relevant hashtags, look at the trending stream to the left of your profile, or check out what your competitors are doing — are they interacting with a specific topic? If they’re doing it, you should too.

Conclusion

So there you have it. In a nutshell, Twitter can provide your small business with another channel to inform and engage your current and potential customers — and every opportunity to do that is worth exploring.

You will want to make sure, though, that you’re using Twitter properly to promote your business, so you don’t get seen as a spammer and damage your small business’s reputation.

There are a range of Twitter management tools, such as Buffer and Hootsuite, that will help you keep on top of your social activity. Meanwhile, Twitonomy helps you measure return on investment — you can track follower growth over time and the number of clicks on links. Many of these tools are free and will quickly become an invaluable part of your social strategy.